Fate Primera
by Mister V
Summary: The Fifth Holy Grail War is over...But a new Holy Grail is emerging from the shadows. The year is 2011, a new generation of Masters are being chosen for this bloody conflict. Unaware of this war, a highschool student is chosen to participate in a battle he never asked for.


**Fate/Primera**

Why did all of this happen…? That is the question that will haunt me for the next few days.

My name is Viktor Liljeholm, I´m eighteen years old and I´m also a high school student, I live in Sweden. My life is pretty much the same every day, unchanging school days, unchanging lifestyle and an unchanging personality. It can be seen as a pretty boring and uneventful way of life but it´s a safe way of life, that´s what I always tell myself but sometimes it´s not enough to satisfy. This is the story of how my everyday life changed and how my perspective of the world changed forever.

Days remaining: 4

24th of August, 2011. It started just like any other day, I had to wake up early in the morning because summer break was officially over, get changed to my everyday clothes and then eat my breakfast. My mum gives me a ride to school pretty much every morning unless she's got something urgent to do before we get out of bed, but it rarely happens. And by "we" I mean me and my two siblings, my little sister Linda and my big brother Rasmus, well he´s no longer studying so he works with dad. Anyways back to me, I arrive at the city Eskilstuna where my school is, which is inside a tiny mall called Smedjan.

My first thoughts when I got inside were: "Just got to survive one more year at school, huh? This year I am a third-year student." and so on and so forth. To be honest, I was pretty uneasy about my last school year, considering the fact that I´ve been going to school for as long as I can remember. I had mixed feelings when I got inside my old classroom, it was a nice nostalgic feeling at first but then I suddenly remembered how noisy most of my classmates were, and I mean they are all nice guys but I hope they´ve learned that sometimes silence can be gold.

All of my classmates are guys and everyone gets along just fine but I have hard time to concentrate when class starts, and it turns out it´ll be no different this year. Nobody had a problem speaking to one another but I preferred being on my own because talking to others usually makes me feeling uncomfortable. You see, I have Asperger's syndrome, which can sometimes give me a hard time talking to other people even my classmates who I´ve known for three years, but I don´t really have a problem talking with my family. It also affects my concentration which is a problem at school but there´s a special teacher who helps me if I can´t solve it on my own so I don´t really have a problem.

We all said our hello´s and longtime no see to each other, I joined in as well but only for a short while before I went back to my seat. Maybe it´s true that my mind works out of step with everyone else´s. It´s just that I don´t know what to say other people. So I hide nervousness and go along with what they say; that´s I´ve made the almost-friendships in my life.

Today there were no lessons, only introductions and getting information about the upcoming year, as well as learning that there would be a couple of new teachers and to treat the new first year students nicely.

Well, I wasn´t intending to pick on them anyhow because I don´t like picking on those younger than me and it will also get me into a lot of trouble. The day was over, everyone was getting ready to leave and we said our goodbye´s to one another. The first day is always pretty short especially in our school (as far as I know). I left school grounds and started walking towards the bus stop; normally I get a lift by mum after her work is done but since school ended earlier than her shift, so I´ll take the bus.

After the bus trip there will be about one and a half kilometer walk home. I live out by the country side, which is pretty far from the city. It´s a fairly long walk but I don´t mind that much, as long as the weathers nice, it usually helps me think things through. When I got home I headed to my room upstairs left my cellphone, wallet, keychain and wristwatch at my desk. As soon as I´ve done that I go back down to the living room and started playing video games. This is what I usually do after I get home from school, either this or using my computer to finish school work or just to relax, I listen to a lot of music too. This is pretty much my everyday life. Mum and Linda came back home a couple of hours after I got here with bags filled with groceries, as soon as mum removed her outdoor clothing and her bag she started working on dinner.

"I am home."

"Welcome home, mum."

"Did you do anything special today?" Mum asks while she starts to cook.

"Not really, they just gave us some info, bus cards and so on." I tell mum after turning of the game console.

"I see. Was it nice to see your classmates again?"

"Yeah, it was nice." I didn´t really have real conversation with the class but it was nice to see familiar faces again.

"How long do you think it is before dinner´s ready?" I ask mum.

"About an hour or so, why do you ask?"

"I was just thinking of taking a jogging run before dinner. I felt a bit sluggish when the day was over." I wouldn´t say the day was tiring but I usually get exhausted when the teachers talk about the coming year. I am not a great listener.

"Then run to your heart's content."

I´m not exactly the most athletic person out there but I have been doing some jogging over the summer. I usually don´t like getting sweaty but I´m starting to get used to it, well muscle pain is a different story. I started getting ready to get going as soon as I got the thumbs up from mum.

It´s a two and a half kilometer run and it can take about thirty minutes or more before I´m done. Exhausted, I start walking back home after I`m done with my exercise run. As soon as I got back home I took a quick shower and when I was finished with that, I joined the family for dinner. Shortly after I finished eating, I start getting ready to get to bed since I´m exhausted from training and school. Normally I stay up late but not tonight, I was too tired.

Days remaining: 3

25th of August, 2011. I woke up early, not because of the alarm clock but out of pain. Not just the muscles ache from yesterday's training but also from a headache, a nasty headache I must add.

"It is probably because I´m hungry." I thought to myself when got out of bed and started to dress myself for school. When I was done putting on my clothes, I went downstairs to get some breakfast. To my surprise I didn´t see mum in the kitchen, she wasn´t even awake when I got down. I usually wake up at 6:30 or 6:40, mum wakes up at least 5 o´clock in the morning and the time is 4 o´clock in the morning, and I´m definitely not a morning person I can assure you of that. The pain in my head is pretty intense; it was unlike anything I´ve ever had before. It wasn´t the burning feeling of fever and it wasn´t the pounding pain of migraine, it feels like a hundred needles were slowly piercing the inside of my head.

"What the hell is this?" The pain was definitely not from hunger, it something else entirely but I don´t know what. I´m starting to lose my balance because of it so I took a seat at the dining table, with both of my hands on my head and my elbows to the table, trying to endure it.

"Viktor?" I heard my mum's voice across the room, I looked at her and she looked at me with a surprised look on her face. Looks like I woke her up, it turns out I´ve been sitting like this for almost half an hour.

"Why are you up so early?"

"Is it wrong for me to be up early on a school day?" I answered her question with a question.

"No, actually it´s a refreshing change. I´m just surprised that you woke up before me."

"I guess I´m starting to learn." Although it was a headache that woke me up.

"What´s wrong, do you have a headache?" She asks after seeing me in the pose that usually indicates a headache.

"Yeah, and it´s a nasty one too." Nasty was an understatement, I´m on the edge of crying.

"I´m pretty sure we have medicine for headaches around here somewhere."

"Is it one of those you have to swallow? Because if that´s what it is, then I´d rather endure the headache." I have an incredibly hard time to swallow pills. Every time I try I´m close to puking.

"Suit yourself, but I think it´s best that you take one." I chose not to take her advice and instead started to bring breakfast to the table. I thought I could take it without much trouble and it would probably go away on it's own after a while, so instead of worrying about it I focused on my breakfast, Linda joined in after an hour passed. I had pretty quick breakfast (a sandwich and some juice) since my stomach is always sensitive in the morning. Once I finished eating I took the remote control to the television that stood in the living room next to the kitchen. The news started as soon I turned the television on.

"Good morning. The recent murders occurring at night near Hällbybrunn has yet to be resolved. The killer behind these murders is still unknown…" The news lady continued her forecast about the victims and how they died.

"Is there ever any good news on television these days? I mean that´s all they show lately." I complain as they talk about other news. Despite my bad attitude towards what's happened I actually got genuinely worried as soon as I realized that the place of the murders are not too far from where I go to school(well, it´s almost seven kilometers away from the school). The news made me want to be more careful when I´m going to school.

"A lot of bad things have been happening lately. I hope nothing else like it happens again" Says Linda after listening to the news. I can´t blame her for being uneasy considering what´s happened.

But right now I have something far worse to think about; school, and this annoying headache, which is a pretty bad combination if you put them together. Well I wouldn´t say that school is worse than murder but that was just me thinking. After I finished watching the news I went upstairs to my room to get my things. It´s still a little early to get ready to go but it never hurts to be prepared. I put my cellphone and wallet in my pockets, my key band around my neck and my wristwatch on my wrist. After that I put my school laptop in my backpack along with its recharger and a wireless computer mouse.

When it´s time to leave I pick up the backpack start walking to the front door. I put on my outdoor clothing, opened the front door and went to the car.

The ride to the city was unusually long for me; it was about a thirty minutes ride from to the city. The pain I´ve had since this morning been starting to subside but dizziness and confusion is instead taking its place.

"What the hell is wrong with me?" I ask myself in silence.

After we dropped off Linda near her school we continued towards the parking lot closer to the city. When we finally got to the parking lot, the first thing I did was tripping as soon as I got out of the car. My sense of balance was completely jumbled by the headache I got so early in the morning and then it shifted to this groggy feeling that made me dizzy, I was like a kid who never learned to walk at first.

The moment my body hit the ground my mum ran over to the other side of the car where I tripped. I couldn´t see her expression since my face was to the ground but from her voice she seems to be panicking.

"Viktor…! Are you alright, Viktor?" She shouts right next to my ear.

"You don´t need to scream, you know. I just tripped." I say while slowly turning my head towards her.

"What happened?" She asks while helping me up.

"Today just isn´t my day, I guess. It must have been the headache since this morning's fault." I was a bit wiggly in the legs so I had a hard time standing up straight.

"See, you should have taken the medicine." Mum scolds me as she´s holding my arm to help me walk straight. Although I doubt those pills would do any good against it.

But seriously, what is wrong with me? I´ve never experienced anything like this before. A killer headache, dizziness and losing balance… It almost feels like I´m going to be the patient in a Dr. House episode. Ugh, just the thought of it sends a shiver down my spine.

While we were walking towards our respective work places, I was slowly regaining my balance and when I felt like I could walk on my own I asked mum to let go of my arm.

"Should I call the school nurse?" My mum asks me while searching for her cellphone.

"That´s probably best." I usually can make it on my own even when I don´t feel well but I shouldn´t underestimate my current condition. The last thing I want is losing my balance again while taking the stairs.

It´s times like these that I really appreciate having mother like mine. She helps me whenever I´m in trouble or if I´m not feeling well, although she tries not to spoil me too much.

We first stopped by mum's workplace because it's closer than my school.

"The school nurse will be waiting for you by the stairs. She said that she has prepared a bed for you."

"Okay, got it." I nod and started walking to school, in which is on the other side of the street. I go past a few stores as I walk in the mall that was the same building as the school was located on. My legs are still pretty weak but I manage to toughen it out long enough to get inside the entrance to the campus stair house. The school nurse is just coming down the elevator that was meant for the handicapped, wounded and occasionally teachers, nobody else is supposed to use it and you need a special key to activate it.

I´ve used it a few times before out of the kindness of the teachers that let me on it but never as someone who literally NEEDS to use it. When I got in the elevator and went up to the third floor, my headache was starting to come back again. We reached the third floor in no time and started to walk to the nurse's office.

"Well, you don´t seem to have a fever…" The nurse examines me when we were inside her office. "And you said you don´t have migraines?"

"Yes, I´m pretty sure that´s the case."

"Did you drink any alcohol yesterday?"

"No, I don´t drink alcohol at all, it tastes terrible."

"I see. You can use the bed in the next room and we´ll see if you´ll get better. But first, do you need some aspirin before you go to bed."

"No thanks." After we finished talking, she took me to the bedroom where I would be resting for a while. I took my shoes off and lay down in the bed. As soon as my head hit the pillow I started getting sleepy, maybe it´s because I woke up so early in the morning. I fell asleep soon afterwards. It´s has been a long time since I last could fall asleep this easily.

I slowly open my eyes again, tired and yawning. I checked my clock to see how long I´ve been out of it. What felt like sleeping in a few minutes, was in fact three hours. I panicked when I realized how long I´ve been sleeping, I put on my shoes and stormed out of the bedroom. As I got to the classroom the lesson was already over.

"Ah, there you are, Viktor." My social studies teacher looked at me pretty surprised. "Gunn told me you were not feeling well so I thought you went home by now."

"Well, that´s-. " Now that I think about it, my headache is gone and I had no problem running here. How did that happen?

"Now that you're up and at it, mind getting a few prints from the printer down the corridor?"

"Uh, sure, I guess. But before I go, what did I miss during the lesson?"

"Nothing major, really. We watched a movie and I introduced a new teacher, he has transferred here from Great Britain."

"He is from Great Britain?"

"Yes, he recently got here. Was there anything else?"

"No, I´ll be going." I answer; nod and I started walking to the supply room that had the printers. As a rule, student's aren´t allowed in the supply room but sometimes the teacher asks to get some equipment from there. On my way there, I was deep in thought about why I suddenly got better. Okay, I got a three hour long sleep but it felt like I was going to be like that for a week. Maybe I´m just thinking too much about it, like I usually do.

When I got closer to the supply room I saw a man standing in front of its door. I didn´t recognize him, he was slightly taller than me (FYI I´m 183cm tall), he wears glasses, he was in his middle twenties or early thirties and his black hair was down to his shoulders with a pony tail. He could be the new teacher that I missed the introduction to. Wait, I remember seeing him in one of the stores on my way here. I should probably introduce myself to him since I wasn´t at class earlier today.

"Excuse-"

"What do you think you´re doing here?" He responds before I could even finish my sentence and in a cold manner. Dressed in a black costume, his glasses gleaming from the sunlight and a dour expression, this man is very intimidating.

"Umm…well…I was told to-"I had a real hard time talking to this man, no, I can´t even say I was "talking" to him it was muttering at best.

…But that sense of intimidation is immediately replaced with extreme discomfort and unease. A sudden, overwhelming sense of danger gives me goose bumps all over my body. His cold, blank, stare sends chills down my spine, as though he´s marking me for death.

…For some reason, it feels as if he is deciding whether to break my neck or to skin me alive. I was completely paralyzed and at the same time wanted to run away but my legs wouldn´t budge. We were the only ones standing in the corridor so I´m entirely on my own…Oh God.

"…Odd. Your name doesn´t appear to be on the list, but I had better make sure…" He begins to mutter under his breath while at the same time he reaches out his right hand. The chills going down my spine gain intensity as waves of nausea and vertigo wash over me. I feel like a rabbit watching the wolf draw near.

I had to get out of here. I start to bite my lip to break me out of this trance and, if I have to, defend myself. Because I felt like this is a kill or be killed situation. I could tell that he noticed that I was about to retaliate if he came any closer and makes an eerie looking smile that would´ve sent even the bravest teenager crying to their mothers, and I´m no exception. And just when he was about to touch me…

"Hey, Viktor, what´s taking so long?" …My social studies teacher comes to my rescue. "Oh, I see you´ve met our new teacher." It´s just as I´ve feared, this man really is our new teacher.

"Yes, we were having a little chat, hence the delay." The sense of danger vanished. He slowly lowers his hand; the man suddenly changed his personality and makes a friendly, smiling face, like a wolf dressing himself as a sheep.

"Viktor here is quite an interesting young man. Oh, I forgot to introduce myself to you. My name is Mathias Prosper, I´ll be teaching you history this year. Now I must go, it was nice meeting you." The man that introduced himself as Mr. Prosper pats the head of my still paralyzed body and walks away. "Oh, I just realized that I already have copy of the print, on my desk. Sorry about that. The campus is about to close so you can go home now, Viktor." My teacher's walks away and when they were out of sight, that´s when my legs collapsed and I hit the floor.

My entire body was shaking, I was completely fatigued (mostly mentally) and I was breathing heavily. I was sitting in the corridor along the wall for about ten minutes.

"What…the hell…was that…?" Today was without a doubt not my day. Wonderful, we now have a teacher with obvious "murderous intent" teaching at our school.

Everything begins to progress as normal, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But I´m still sore and slick with sweat; an all too real reminder of what happened.

Days remaining: 2

26th of August, 2011. Unlike yesterday I didn´t wake up from intense pain, I had a hard time sleeping because of my new psychotic teacher, so I was awake until early morning and then fell asleep only to wake up to the alarm clock two hours later.

"Were you up late last night again?" My mum asks as we eat breakfast.

"No, I simply couldn´t sleep, that's all."

"Do you know why?"

"Yes…Yesterday wasn´t my day" Mum looks at me with a confused look. I haven´t told her what happened yesterday, even if I did tell her she probably wouldn´t believe in me.

I was half asleep all the way to school; well I fell asleep in mum's car on the way there.

It was clear to me that I had to stay as far away from Mr. Prosper as possible, so I was trying to come up with a way to avoid him. That feeling of danger was the real deal, there´s no mistake about that. When I have lessons with him I could ask to use one of the group rooms instead of the classroom, I probably can concentrate on my work with him in the room. What the hell am I thinking? This guy could kill me and I´m worrying about my schoolwork rather than my own life...God.

It was incredibly hard for me to open the door to school; it could be compared to entering a lion's den. I couldn´t see him when I finally got inside campus grounds, which is a relief in itself. For some strange reason I end up searching for him, I want to make sure if he´s here or not. Wait, instead of searching for him I should ask one of my teachers instead, it´s much safer that way.

I got to the third floor and a large group of guys talking next to the door. I could hear them saying something about someone who transferred here. It´s not just out by the door, in the corridors it´s the same talk. What´s got their attention? Right now I should focus on finding out if Mr. Prosper is here. I go to my special teacher's office first to see if I can get anything there.

"Excuse me." I knock on the door and it shortly opens up by Monika, my special teacher.

"Viktor, what´s wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong really. I was just wondering if the new teacher, Mr. Prosper, is here today."

"I don´t think so. I haven´t seen him today at least."

"I see. By the way, you don´t happen to know what everyone in the corridor is talking about?"

"Sorry, I have been sitting in the office all morning so I haven´t heard anything."

"I see." I thank Monika and start to walk to my classroom. Well, I got what I wanted, even if she´s not seen him it´s a pretty big chance that he´s not here today.

"Viktor, have you heard?" One of my classmates came and talked to me when I got to classroom.

"Heard about what?"

"I´m talking about the one that recently transferred here."

"Do you mean Mr. Prosper, the new teacher?"

"No, I mean the transfer student. I hear she´s a real beauty."

"Is that what every guy in school is talking about?" Well, I guess that make sense. A transfer student can be seen as a lot more interesting than a new teacher, and the student is a girl too which adds interest, especially to guys. "Do you know where she is from?"

"I´m don´t know where she´s from but I do know that she´s a foreigner. And guess what?"

"What?" He looked like he was going to say something out of topic.

"She has already rejected three guys that asked her out!"

"Are you serious? Three? Wait, when did she come here?"

"Yesterday, I think."

"Damn…" This transfer student really sounds like something out of the ordinary. The class was about to start so we ended our conversation there. I didn´t bother asking for her name because then it would seem like I would try my luck on her and also because I don´t want to become an enemy with every guy in school.

When computer science class started I tried to get my mind off this Prosper situation and instead focused on my work. We were making our own network hubs today. When it comes to computing and tech I´m pretty good at what I do so this ought to help me think about other things. I was half done with my project when we could take a break.

I went by to small supermarket in the mall to buy a quick meal before the break is over. I bought a chicken and curry sandwich along with some juice to drink, since it´s pretty nice weather outside I decided to eat on the school roof instead of the corridor or the mall. The school roof is almost like a small park with a lawn, benches, tables and smoking booths for those who are dumb enough to smoke.

It was nice and sunny outside, there was also barely any wind too so it was perfect to eat my meal here. I took a seat on one of the benches placed in the lawn, opened up the plastic around the sandwich and took a bite. It's not often I take a meal like this, I mostly save my appetite for lunch but today I´ll make an exception. While I was eating I leaned my arm along the bench and my hand landed on something made out of paper.

It was today's issue of the Metro newspaper. "Well, that´s convenient." I didn´t see it when I looked for a place to sit.

I thought maybe I should read a little while I was eating since I still had time until class starts. While I looked for the entertainment section of the newspaper I came across an article about the recent deaths occurring not too far from here. It says that two families who has died; the first was a family of two parents and three children whilst the other was a family of two parents and one child. These families were not the only ones; there were also single individuals who died. The most confusing part of this article is that the cause of death of all these people is unknown.

"What´s that supposed to mean? They had their bodies investigated and they still couldn´t find anything?" I say out loud while reading. No signs of struggle such as strangle marks or any other external wounds, no signs of disease and there were no accidents as far as the investigators could tell. They just died, even the children who were in perfectly good health. There is also news about the people, who lives in the surrounding area of the victims, most of them are moving out of their homes because of what has been going on there.

This article didn´t really scare me or anything, it only made me angry. Not on the investigators who didn´t find anything but the fact innocent men, women and children had to die for no apparent reason what so ever. I was so angry that I unconsciously ate my sandwich so fast that I got a stomachache.

"Ugh-!" I put down the newspaper and tried to calm down. I drank a bit of the juice I bought hoping to calm both my stomach and my head. It worked to some degree, I´m not angry anymore but my stomach is still in pain, well I didn´t expect it to work like medicine. I check at my clock to see what time it is. There is still some time left before my class starts so decided to sit here and relax for a little while longer. For some reason I haven´t been able to relax this week, it´s usually a cake walk for me to just lie down and take rest but there has been so many strange things going on lately. Now that I think about it, it is a very weird school week, too weird for my standards.

"People dying for unknown reasons, a killer headache gets me then vanishes and a transferred teacher from the UK that stares at me like Hannibal Lecter. This whole week sounds like a Richard Kelly movie." I murmur while looking towards the sky and then give out a loud sigh.

"Sounds like you´re having a rough week."

"Yeah, you have no id-." I paused in the end of my sentence when I realize someone is talking to me behind my back.

I make a short shout because of the surprise and jump out of the bench in a split second. It was a pretty delayed reaction but I simply couldn´t see it coming. I became slightly fatigued by the shock and by the jump I made.

"Umm…Did I scare you?" The mysterious voice asks me. From the voice I´d say it´s a girl that´s standing behind me.

"…" I didn´t respond to her question.

I turned around to have a look at my sneak attacker and perhaps do a little payback.

"Hey! What are-"

But when I saw her face I was completely stunned. She´s like a figure out of a painting with a body similar to that of a model´s; she has short straight-combed, strawberry-red hair, aqua blue eyes and my guess would be that she´s somewhere between 165cm and 170cm tall. She´s wearing a brown sweater jacket, a loose red ribbon around her neck, a black mini skirt, black stockings with white lines and brown shoes.

I don´t remember ever seeing her before, since it´s a pretty small school I would have probably seen her at least once. No, she must be the new transfer student that everyone talks about; she was never here last year or the year before that. I would´ve easily remembered someone like her by just seeing her once.

"…" I went quite when I got a good look at her. I´ve never had a conversation with a girl of my age without making a fool out of me or just getting too nervous to talk. But I try to muster enough courage to start a conversation…

"C-c-can I help you with anything?" … That was pathetic. This is what happens when the least social guy in class tries to make good first impression.

"Hmm, I can´t think of anything in particular. I was just surprised to see anyone other than me up here."

"Huh…?" That was an unexpected answer. I couldn´t tell but I probably gave her a surprised look after her response. "Uh…Okay, if that´s the case." I say after realizing how stupid of me it was to get nervous in the first place since she seems to be a nice person. Still it´s not unusual for me to get a bit tense during a conversation, be it with a girl or a guy.

"What were you doing here?" She asks soon afterwards.

"Hm..? Oh, I had pretty long break this afternoon so I decided to be out here while the weathers nice. I bought some meal so to me this was like the icing on the cake." I shrugged off my nervous attitude and gave her straight answer.

We held this conversation alive for another two minutes. I´m going to be blunt when I say this; she is a very strange person. She comes out of nowhere, surprise attacks me and for some reason she wants talk to me about all kinds of stuff. I mean, does she have any idea how defenseless she is, considering the fact that she is talking to a complete stranger? She is also strange in a different kind of sense. Having a hard time talking to others is one thing but to look into someone´s eyes is even more difficult for me.

Here´s the other strange thing I mentioned; I had no difficulty talking to her or looking her in the eye, in fact my eyes were drawn to hers.

-_Something's wrong... Something´s wrong…_ _Something´s wrong…_

My mind keeps repeating that same sentence over and over again, as if telling me to get away from here. Yes, something´s not right here. First off, I never saw anyone in the area when I got here, it´s still too early for some of the other classes to get a break at this hour. Secondly, when I felt my unease disappearing after she gave me an answer, well it didn´t feel natural in any way, it felt more like it was thrown away by some outside force. Thirdly and clearly the most noticeable thing in my point of view, it´s her eyes, not only are mine drawn to hers but I can´t look away from them, as if that´s the only thing that I can see. No, the only I was allowed to see. If that´s not weird then what is!

Suddenly I feel a warm sensation on my right cheek. I must have spaced out; the girl put her left index finger there when I was thinking.

_-W-why is she touching me…?_

When I realized she was touching me, my head reached its boiling point, with that my face turned red and my head became dizzy. This was too much for me, I had to get away from her or I would go crazy, but when I tried I realized…

_-I can´t move…_

My limbs won´t do as their told, my entire body is deep frozen and the only thing that showed a slight amount of movement were my eyes but they could only see the enchanting eyes of the girl in front of me. I try to move again but nothing is moving I can hear my joints make a creaking noise when I try to move them, almost like a set of cog wheels that are stuck by an object that got in between them.

_-What the hell is going on! This can´t be happening! Why me…! Move! Please move!_

My head is in a state of panic, my thoughts whirl and my heart is racing. I try desperately to come up with a logical explanation to calm my nerves but there was none that would make sense. This is nothing like the first time I met Prosper because I don´t feel like my life is in danger and my body isn´t frozen out of fear, she only touched me and then I couldn´t move.

"Hmm…You´re more resilient than I thought you were. It seems there´s more to you than meets the eye. Normally I would only need to look and you would be petrified but I had to touch you in order for it to have any effect on you." She tells me with a delighted voice.

I knew it; this was her doing after all. Did she use some kind of poison or did she hypnotize me? Whatever she used it´s taking its toll on my body. I want to say something but my mouth is completely frozen.

"Don´t misunderstand me, I´m not like Prosper and I don´t like picking on the weak either so don´t worry. Hmm …I know, I´ll give you something to think about on your way home. You could call it a warning."

_-A-a warning…? What kind of warning do you want to deliver while paralyzing someone! And what is this about me being weak!_

_-Huh…?_

Then adding to the drama I feel my head going blank and my conscious slowly fading away. My panic was washed away and my vision was getting blurry. Instead of letting myself fall asleep I try my best to stay awake but it´s not enough, this drowsiness is too much for my mind to handle. And just before I lost it, the girl closes in to my right ear and whispers…

"If you don´t call on it soon…you will die."

After I heard her words, my legs gives in and vision goes dark. My body is released from its frozen state and I could feel my body hitting the ground like a tossed ragdoll. It was almost like falling asleep in broad daylight but you couldn´t dream; it was terrifying to be left in the dark like that, with absolutely no light source in sight, you could almost say it is a mild version of coma. My sense of sight, hearing, smell and feeling were dulled by the darkness that was filling my mind.

And after what seemed like an eternity, I heard something echoing in my ears.

"-r." I could just barely hear a voice but I couldn´t make out what it said.

"-tor." The darkness was starting to lift from my mind and my senses were starting to come back.

"Viktor, wake up!" The shouting voice signaled my head to full alert. I open my eyes and I realize that I´m lying on something soft while covered by what seemed to be blanket.

When I finally came to I saw that I was in the school nursery and that I was lying in a bed. The one who woke me up was Gunn the school nurse, she´s sitting on a chair right next to the bed.

"Gunn…What happened?" I ask her, my head is still a bit groggy.

"That is what I want to ask! What happened, Viktor? You were lying on the ground on the rooftop. One of the students found you up there, we thought you were unconscious." She scolds me; I guess I made her worry. Still, I was in such a bad condition?

"I have a question, how long was I out?"

"You were sleeping for about 40 minutes in here but I don´t know for how long when you were outside."

"That´s how long I slept?" It felt a lot longer than that. Well I wouldn´t call it sleep in the first place though…Wait a minute, what about the girl?

"By the way, was I the only one up there?"

"Well, yes you were the only one. Why are you asking?" Why am I not surprised? The culprit escaped the crime scene…How original.

"I am just wondering. This is a bit off topic but do you know anything the transfer student who recently got here? She has red hair and she´s about as old as I am."

"By transfer student you mean the one every boy in school talks about?" I nod as an answer. She starts looking through her files shortly afterwards.

"Let´s see… Oh, here it is. Her name is Sylvie, Sylvie Archibald." So the mysterious girl has a name, Sylvie. The name Archibald sounds a bit British or Scottish perhaps. Well where ever she´s from is not the problem, the main thing is that I should stay away from her.

"First Prosper and now Sylvie. Do they have some kind grudge against me? I don´t remember if I´ve ever being hated by someone before, well except of the occasional sibling hatred back home." But seriously, these two are trouble.

"What are you talking about?" Gunn asks me.

"Nothing, it´s just me talking to myself. Thanks for taking care of me." I say to her with a depressed tone in my voice. I get up from the bed.

"Wait, are you sure you´re all right!"

"I´m fine, I was probably just tired from staying up late." I lie but it´s for the best. She would probably never believe in me anyway.

"Then it must have been a heavy exhaustion if you were to collapse and being unresponsive." She still don´t want to let go of me because of the incident but I reassure her that I´m fine. When I step outside the nursery I close the door, I clap my hands together and say…

"Please never let me cross paths with those two again." I make a simple prayer and hope that it comes true.

Instead of leaving school, I decided to go back to the rooftop. There are too many things that are unclear and I want answers rather than more questions.

As I expected, she really was not there anymore. The only thing that was left from that time was the newspaper I read earlier. Questions just kept swarming in my head, why is this happening to me, who is that girl, what was the warning about and what is this about calling? I feel like I´m on the verge of going insane if I don´t get this sorted out soon.

"I don´t think my poor heart can take this much longer. Right now I just want to go home." I no longer care my class work. I want to get away from here. But before that happens I get another surprise from behind. Someone grabs my left shoulder when I was letting my guard down. Unlike last time I didn´t jump this time, instead I just stiffened like statue.

"Hey, Viktor! How are you doing?" It is one of my classmates.

"Why can´t you just stop that? Getting surprised once today is more than enough for me." I burst out.

"Ha-ha, got you there, didn´t I?" He is joking about it. "More importantly, are the rumors about you talking to transfer student true?"

"There are rumors about it?" That was quick. It's only been about an hour since I talked to her.

"So you did talk to her." Damn it, I can feel my low profile fading away. I don´t like being the center of attention.

"Well…yeah I did." I tell him in a timid manner. As soon as I gave him my answer, the guys around the area who overheard our conversation starts flocking around me. I guess they know about the rumor too.

They bombarded me with questions about Sylvie. Like what´s her name, do you know each other and did you really faint when you talked to her. The stress that has been bottled up in me for these past days is reaching its limits. They just kept nagging me with all these questions for about three minutes, that´s when I snapped.

"COULD ALL OF YOU JUST SHUT UP!" I bark out. The entire rooftop went quite. "Let me make a few things perfectly clear for all of you. First off, we don´t know each other. Secondly, the entire conversation I had with her was her doing, not mine. And thirdly, I did not faint!" I don´t know if they were listening or were just shocked but it seems to work.

The day has ended at school so I get my things and start to walk towards mum's workplace. This whole week is just getting worse. All these incidents close to town and the strange things that keep happening around me. When I go outside of school grounds I see ambulances and police cars passing by in high speed. What´s happened to this town? Whatever happened to my quiet, everyday life?

I can feel my peaceful schooldays are coming to an end.

Days remaining: 1

27th of August, 2011. Saturday, the weekend is finally here and not a day too soon either. I don´t know what would happen to me if it was school time today. Nothing would surprise me. I mean, considering the fact that those two showed up out of nowhere and turned my life upside down in less than a week.

"No, no more thinking about that! Now is the time to relax." I´ve calmed down a bit since yesterday but I´m still a bit hung-over by all the things that have been going on. Especially the warning Sylvie gave me…

_-If you don´t call on it soon…you will die._

Those words are engraved in my head. I´d love to follow that warning but I honestly have no idea what it means.

"Argh, there I go again! Alright, from here on out, there´ll no more thinking about that. More importantly, breakfast." I slap my cheeks as I declare it and start to prepare for breakfast.

I had my usual breakfast but with oven baked scones instead of the everyday bread that I eat during school weeks. This is a good start for the Saturday morning.

"So, how is it going for you in school, Viktor?" And then that ruins it.

"-!" A large piece of bread crumb got stuck in my throat when mum gave me the question that I don´t want to discuss. I quickly take my glass filled with juice to clear my throat and I could breathe again.

"I can´t complain I guess. It's been going well so far at least." The first part of that sentence isn´t true, I could complain a lot about it.

"I see, but I heard that you collapsed yesterday on the rooftop. What happened?"

"I was just clumsy yesterday, it´s nothing to worry about. Now can I eat my breakfast?" I try to avoid the subject by lying about it. I am starting to get a bit nauseous because my conscience is getting the better of me, I´ve been lying to a lot of people this week after all. But I can´t tell my family about it, they would never believe in me.

"Well, that´s fine but you don´t look so good. Are you feeling alright?" She just wouldn´t give up.

"Stop asking, would you? I can´t concentrate on my breakfast." I didn´t want to talk to anybody right now.

"What is wrong with you? I was just worried about you." That outburst freezes the air around the food table. Mum must be really worried but I can´t say it.

"If something is wrong then you can tell us. We are your family." Now dad joins in too. I got into a pretty awkward position.

"Look, I know you´re worried about what´s happened but I´m fine, really. There is nothing to worry about, okay." After that comment the bread a bit more bitter when it should taste salt. "Thanks for the breakfast." I go back to my room.

There´s no way I can relax now that my family worries about how it goes for me at school. Well, for now I´ll just spend my time walking around the village since it´s nice outside and who knows, I might sort things out in the mean while. Grabbed my cell phone and headphones from my room and went back downstairs.

"Mum, I´m going to take walk for a while."

"Alright, be careful."

I go to the entrance of the house; I put on my leather jacket, my sneakers and I attach the headphones to my cellphone. With that done, I open the front door and begin my walk around the village.

I go along the lighted trails in the forest first, it´s here I usually jog but today I just want to take it easy. The calm atmosphere in the woods is really helping me with calming my nerves. But I also want to think things through along the way; I was hoping to get some blood flow in to my head for that reason and to be left alone. This is the opportunity for me to think without interruption.

"Alright, let's start with suspicious character number one; Mr. Prosper. He gave clear signs of hostility the first time I saw him, he literally made me fear for my life by just looking at me. Or maybe I´m getting paranoid, which is also an alternative but I rather doubt it, that feeling of danger felt very real to me. Still, the other teachers and students doesn´t seem to have noticed it so it could´ve been my imagination, I also just recently got out of nursery at that time." I talk to myself while I´m strolling down the trail with music in my ears. I might look like a nut-job if anyone saw me talking to myself like this but I was so into it so wouldn´t give a damn if they did.

"And then there´s suspicious character number two; Sylvie, the girl that became the schools idol in less than a day. Out of these two, she´s probably the most mysterious. She was able to do things I have never seen before, for example paralyzing and knocking someone out with just a touch of her finger." The more I think about it the less it makes sense to me. When she froze me it felt like a stream of water was pouring from her finger into my body and then that stream turned into ice.

"She is also different in another way. I couldn´t feel any hostility whatsoever from her when I we met. She acted almost like she knew me before this."

That would make even less sense to me if that were the case. I´m no good at remembering names but I´m a lot better at remembering faces I´ve seen before. I continue on trying to solve mystery as I go along the path. One and a half kilometer later and I´m back at the start of the trail.

I came up with virtually nothing that might´ve helped me understand what was going on. It´s very frustrating but I admit my defeat and drop the subject. This is detective work and I don´t have what it takes at figuring out this whole deal.

"Alright, where should I go next?" Since I finished walking around the track I could go to the elementary school by following the road on to the other side of the plantation fields.

"How many years has it been since I last went there?" I have no particular reason to go there, I simply felt like taking nostalgia trip. This school is ideal for a child's growth in my opinion. A large forest to play in, the school grounds also has a basketball field as well as a football field and a playground as well. The school building itself is fairly big with two floors.

"This brings back memories…" I walk close to the forest at the school. This was my favorite place in the entire school. Here my classmates used to play war with one another. We used sticks to build up small huts that we called our bases and we also used the sticks as weapons, of course it was all for fun.

"Well, even though we were just playing around, there were those who would get hurt."

"Let´s continue with the walk." I go back on the road and go up a hill close to the school. I was heading towards the church that was positioned further up the road. The school used to force its classes to sing there just before the holidays.

"Ugh…I remember those days. Some of the worst days of my life…" I wouldn´t say they were worse than this week but being forced to sing in a choir in front of over a hundred people when your barely ten years old isn´t fun. I almost fainted every time I had to sing. The only thing I like about the choir was being in the church. I thought it was beautiful from the inside with its chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, colorful windows and the organ playing on the floor above.

"Ah, there it is." I could see it when I got up on the hill. The churches white walls, its black roof and the graveyard surrounding it as well. I go through the front gate and then to the entrance. The doors are unlocked, maybe there are visitors inside. I open the doors and enter the building without thinking of anyone inside. The clothe hanger room next to the entrance has a coat hanging on a coat-hanger, suggesting that there is only one person in the main hall.

"Maybe it is the priest whose here." I hang my jacket there as well and enter through inner door. It´s a room I haven´t seen for many years and it still manage to take my breath away. The size of the room, the radiant colors of the windows combined with light of the sun and the man-sized cross standing on top of the altar at the other side of the room.

"It is a sight for sore eyes."

"It is, isn´t it?" I hear a voice echoing at the far end of the hall, next to the altar.

A man in his mid-thirties is standing there; he has short blonde hair, green eyes and wears a black bishop class priest uniform with dark purple coat along with a golden cross necklace hanging from his neck.

"It´s not often you find a church like this, you know." He continues talking.

"Excuse me…I was not supposed to come in here, right? I´ll leave." I feel like I´m barging into someone else's home. I start walking towards the entrance until he said:

"No, there´s no need. The church is open for visitors anytime." I stop when heard him say it. "But are you not a bit too early? Today is not Sunday."

"No, you misunderstand. I don´t come here regularly. I just had some free time and I wanted to see this place one more time."

"Oh, is that so. I thought that you came here on weekends. Sorry about that, I´m still new here so I don´t know much about this place." I see, no wonder I didn´t recognize him. "You said you wanted to see this place again. Did you used to come here?"

"Well, yes occasionally. I used to be going to the school just down the hill; I and my classmates were to sing here at the church before the holidays began. This place has place has some nostalgic value to me so I came."

"Ugh…so you had to go through that too? I remember when I was forced to sing at the chapels when I was a kid." He made a sour expression after he said it. I almost started laughing because of the fact that we had something in common. He´s not exactly what I pictured a priest would be.

He starts to walk in my direction as if to greet me.

"Are you thirsty? I just prepared to have some coffee and cake in the next room. You´re welcome to join me if you want." He points at a door along the left side of the hall.

"Um… I´d love to but I have to get-." Then before I could finish the sentence my stomach starts growling. I didn´t eat as much as I´d hoped during breakfast.

"I can share some of my cake with you as well." He says this while laughing after hearing my empty stomach growl.

"You don´t have to laugh that hard about it, you know."

"Sorry, I just couldn´t help myself."

I took him up on his offer and joined him in his coffee break. "My name is Henric, Henric Jarl and I am the newly arrived bishop of this house of God." He introduces himself.

"I am Viktor Liljeholm, nice to meet you."

I follow Henric to the room he pointed at. It looks almost like a small library with book shelves along the walls and a long table at the center of the room. I take a seat at the end of the table whilst Henric brings in the snack tray with coffee and cake. He sets down the tray on the table and then he looks me in the face.

"Thank you, Father Jarl." I take a small piece of cake.

"Please, call me Henric. Being called Father Jarl makes me sound old." But I have hard time eating because of him staring at me, it makes me uneasy.

"Is there something wrong?" I had to say it before I get annoyed.

"Is there something troubling you, Viktor?" He asks right of the bat while making serious face.

"…!" How did he know that? I didn´t say anything. Is he also one of those suspicious characters?

"W-what makes you say that?"

"You´re face says everything. Ever since you got in here you have been looking like that. I know I´m not supposed to pry but you can tell me what´s been bothering you. That´s what a priest does after all."

"…" I don´t know what to do here. I really want to tell someone about this but who would believe in what I´ve been through? Should I confess or should I lie like I have done up until now? Besides why should I tell him?

"If you keep this to yourself the pressure will only build up and you´ll eventually break." Those words hit me like a jackhammer. Is it really okay to tell him? I mean he´ll probably laugh at me or just won´t believe in me, that´s what any sane man would do.

"You won´t tell anyone else about this?" You don´t know until you try.

"I promise." He speaks plainly. Even though I´ve just met him, it feels like I can tell him anything. I can´t put in words in why I feel this way but he gives me this strange sense of security, of honesty.

I told him about the new teacher, Mr. Prosper. I also told him about Sylvie and I told him about the strange headache I had as well. I spared no expense on the details. It took me about ten minutes to explain it all in a short time.

"I see…" But even after I finished explaining everything, his serious expression didn´t change one bit. Hell, he didn´t even look surprised.

"Do you believe in such a story?" I ask him.

"Was it a lie?" He replied. I was literally dumbfounded after he said that. He actually believes in me? He doesn´t look like the joking type either so I think it´s safe to say that he´s serious.

But the friendly atmosphere the priest was emitting just a few minutes ago shifted to a more intimidating one.

"…" Without realizing it, I wanted to take a step back. He is not scary at all. I don´t feel any hostility from him. But this priest still gave a presence that makes the air around him feel heavy.

"You mentioned that you had an intense headache a few days ago, right?"

"Hm…? Yeah I did get one a while back. Why do you ask?" I ask Henric while not trying to lose to his presence. He didn´t answer my question, instead he lifted up his right hand and pointed all of his fingers towards my face.

"I am going to try something on you now. It´ll probably hurt you but please bear with it. If I´m right this might save your life out there."

"Wait, what!" I don´t know what he´s going to do and I don´t want to know either, if it´s going to hurt then I´m out of here. But I didn't even manage to get up from my chair before his hand was on my forehead. He put a firm grip with his fingers around my head and then he opens his mouth as if he´s preparing to say something.

I didn´t understand it. He clearly said something when he opened his mouth. I heard it but I couldn´t grasp it, like it was beyond my ability of understanding. Once he finished speaking in his strange language, I hear a cracking sound.

The sound scared me because it came from the inside of my head, it wasn´t the sound of bones cracking but it sounded more like rusty metal or iron that was slowly breaking. This feels very similar to when I met Sylvie, the strange feeling of something entering me, but this feels more like an electric current than a stream of water.

"Argh…!" A sharp pain soon followed with the noise. This pain is unmistakable to me, it´s the splitting headache I had a couple of days ago except this one twice more powerful than the last one. It emptied every single thought in my mind in the process.

"Ugh!" This is unbearable to me; I can feel tears stream down my cheeks as the needle like pain keeps pounding into my brain. Something else is causing pain in my body as well but not in my head, it´s coming from down my spine. It felt like a burning steel rod was slowly being inserted to my backbone.

The temperature in my body kept rising from the pain in my back to the point where it felt like I was being branded like cattle would be in a ranch. Sweat covered my body and tears are pouring out of me as this went on.

"Please…No…more…" My mind is breaking at a slow rate and all I can do is begging the priest to stop. My muscles were completely tense so I can´t move my arms or legs, it´s hard for me to just breathe. After what felt like hours, something shatters in my head. The sound of broken glass fills my head and the make shift steel rod was thoroughly placed in my spine but the pain I thought would torture me for the rest of the day vanished, like it was never there.

The priest lets go of my forehead and I start to fall to the table, gasping for air. My muscles are burned out so it was impossible for me to break the fall. I hit the table with a loud bang, I saw Henric was trying to catch me just before I crash to the table but was a little late. I receive a nasty headache from that landing but it was nothing in comparison to the agony I had a few seconds ago, so I was able to deal with it relatively easy, at least enough to stay conscious.

Henric stood beside me as if to check up on me to see if I´m alright. He was saying something but I couldn´t hear every word he said. The sound of shattered glass not too long ago left my ears with a ringing noise lingering in my ear drums, like an aftereffect from an explosion.

But that noise didn´t last very long because after a few seconds I could hear my surroundings again.

"What…did…you do…to…me?" I mustered enough strength and breath to say those words. My entire body feels like it's been through a whole week's worth of body build training without a single second of rest.

"I am giving you a fighting chance. Even if you´re not aware of it, you´re capable of doing things most people can´t do." That answer didn´t satisfy me at all.

"That doesn´t…answer…my question. What…did you do?" I´m still struggling to stay awake but I won´t black out before I get the answer I want. I am sick of being left in the dark.

The priest seemed to hesitate for a second there but then he told me what he did.

"Fine, I'll tell you. I removed an abnormality that resided in your mind. You could say it´s a defective body part that has been repaired to its original state." He gave me another answer I didn´t understand.

"Defective…?" Does he mean like a tumor? If that´s true then how the hell did he manage to fix something that´s inside my head by just holding my forehead with his hand? "Henric…Who are you?"

"I´m not your enemy, if that´s what you think. The pain you got from the procedure was a mere side effect, it wasn´t what I wanted to happen but I knew that you wouldn´t die by it. In fact, that pain could be a great reference for you in the future."

"Reference…? What do you mean by reference!" I shout at him. I´m really starting to get agitated by all the cryptic answers he keeps giving me. My fatigue is starting to catch up to me as my frustration rises.

"Don´t get angry at me. I´ll give you the answers you want if you´re patient enough to listen to me." He says this while giving me a smile.

"…!" That sentence made my head clear and my body´s fatigue vanish. My wish to know what´s going on around me was stronger than a little drowsiness. I sat up straight in the chair and I was all ears. "Please tell me!"

"*chuckle*, it looks like you really want to know. I won´t tell you anything but I will show you something that might give an idea of what you´re dealing with but you must promise me that you will not tell anyone about."

I was a bit skeptic at first but I agreed on the condition to not tell anyone by giving a nod. That simple gesture seemed to be enough for him to show me what I want to know.

He covered the windows with the curtains and closed the door to the main hall. With that done he stood in front of me at the other side of the table while holding out his right hand. I reacted to that by holding both of my hands to my forehead, in case he wanted to do that procedure again.

But he never got close to me; he simply rolls up his sleeve and held his hand up in the air for a short while. That´s when I saw it.

"What the…!" I couldn´t believe in what I saw. On the priests arm, something like a small glowing tattoo just below the wrist appears, even though it wasn´t there when he rolled back his sleeve. But that wasn´t the last thing he showed me, on the palm of his hand some strange light was forming into something like a small glowing star.

"…" My mind didn´t operate properly after seeing what´s happening. My common sense tells me that it´s special effects that are projected from somewhere in the room. Call it a gut feeling but I didn´t believe it was some sort of prank or a computer generated image.

"It´s real…?" I say unconsciously as I watch the spectacle before me. I stretch my hand towards the strange light and Henric lowered his arm so I could get closer. This was very real. As I got closer I could feel heat coming from that same light, even a projection can´t imitate that. In fact, it was so hot that couldn´t touch it with my hands, if I did touch it I would get burned for sure.

It was beautiful. He then closed his hand with the small star on it and it vanished, the glowing tattoo disappeared into his skin in the process. I didn´t want to believe it but I have to say it to confirm it…

"Is it…magic?" I´ll probably be dumb declared as an answer.

"Oh, you are a very open minded young man. Yes, this is magic. Most people would say it´s special effects but you didn´t. You really are an interesting person." He said that with the same smile he had on his face before he showed me this. "I´m a priest but I am also spell caster."

Now I have even more questions to ask him now than I had before. Like how did you do that, can you teach me and so on? The things that I could learn from this guy; that thought alone would probably keep me up at night.

But just when I opened my mouth to ask he held up his hand in front himself, a gesture of refusal.

"Before you say it, you should know that I have a rather busy schedule today. I was simply having a longer break than I usually do." Henric tells me.

I think he just said that to delay the inevitable, not just because his break is over for today. Well, I´m not going to give up until he tells me more about magic or even better teach me magic. This whole subject is too interesting to let go off.

He looks at me like he knows exactly what I´m thinking about and he didn´t seem to enjoy it either because that look on his face gives a very bitter impression. He also looked at with a nasty glare, a glare that reminded me of when I first met Mr. Prosper; that alone made me lose hope in learning anything.

He gave out a sigh and looked at me again but with softer eyes this time.

"…Alright, I´m probably going to regret it later but I´ll give you some pointers on how to do it yourself. But you must follow these instructions to the very last detail, understood?" My hope to learn went sky high after hearing him say that. I wouldn´t be surprised if my eyes were sparkling at that moment.

What he tells me is how to cast a spell called Reinforcement, magic used to strengthen the properties of an already existing object. I listen to every word he had to say with enthusiasm. I wasn´t sure if I´d be able to pull it off considering the fact that it was almost like producing a miracle but I wanted to give it a try at least once.

After he told me the instructions I needed to know, I realized it was pretty late, I entered here at one o´clock in the afternoon and now it´s three o´clock. My parents are probably wondering on about what I´m doing at this hour. I said my goodbye to Henric and walked straight home afterwards.

My legs were still burned out so getting to my house got a lot slower than usual, even though it´s located not too far away from the church. When I got home after a long walk, I ignored my parents asking me on what I´ve been doing and went straight to my bed.

The fatigue I´ve been holding back for about an hour was starting to get the better of me, so I fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow.

And so, the day ends.

Just before midnight, I start to walk out of the room, down the stairs and towards the front door of the house. Everyone was asleep so I had to move without getting anyone´s attention. Now is the time to test myself if I really can use "magic" or not.

I had to find a place to practice without anyone seeing me and I knew just the place where I can go. The basement of the house just underneath the terrace is the perfect spot. I discreetly put on my jacket and my shoes, the moon was still up so I didn´t need to take a flashlight with me.

I walk towards the basement as soon as I finished getting dressed and went out through the front door.

"Looks like it´s going to be a full moon tomorrow." I say as I look towards my only light source in the sky. It emitted a gentle, bright light as I navigated around the outside of the house to my destination. I walked around the terrace so I wouldn´t make any noise, I saw the front door I was looking for and I got inside.

I put lights on as I got in and closed the door behind me. It is pretty cold down here but it´s isolated by stone walls so it´s the best place I could find for now.

"Now I need to find something I can use." There are a lot of things I can find and put to good use in here but I wanted to start with something small for my first try. Along the wall I find a 50cm long steel pipe and I pick it up to examine it. It´s light and is not wider than a ruler, so I could easily get a steady grip around it.

"Yes, this will do." I recall the instructions I was given earlier today and I try to follow them as much I can. I also remember the warning he gave me while he told me what to do.

_-"Magic" is nothing like what you see in modern media these days, in the real world it´s a lot more risky. If you´re going to do this you better be in the right state of mind because if you lose concentration even for just a second, the consequences could be terrible. I would recommend that you don´t do it on your own and come back tomorrow instead but it´s your choice. I want you to know this before you leave this place; magic is only a way to destroy yourself. To learn magic is to stray away from common sense. You die when you die and you kill when you must. Our essence is not in life but in death. What I will teach you will bring you conflicts. That is why you must not use it in front of people. If you do that, you may become a magic user but you will not become a magus…_

"…" I listened to the warning but I didn´t heed it, I really wanted to try it as soon as possible. I understood that it was risky but I will do it anyway. I´m acting against my very nature of being careful and thoughtful, I am almost like a child who found his dads hunting rifle.

Besides, I don´t really care about becoming a full-fledged magus. But if I could become a magus that would be great, although I don´t mind being a simple magic user either. Either way, I would be able to do near impossible things on my own.

"Alright, let´s do this." I held both of my hands around the pipe; I stretch out and adjust my breathing. I try to empty my mind using the memory I have from when Henric did that procedure to my head. I ignore everything around me and pay attention only to what´s inside of me.

"Trace, on." As if to hypnotize myself, I murmur the spell I was told to use. No, I really am hypnotizing myself. As I have no knowledge of magic and have no instructor at the moment, a spell is only a change to myself.

I was told that normally, there are no lines in a human body to allow passage of magical energy. To artificially change my body to create such a line, I need enough concentration to unify my whole body and every nerve within it.

Magic is a battle with myself. For instance, at this very moment, I am inserting a burning steel rod into my backbone. I copy every feeling I remember from when Henric injected his magical energy into my mind. This metal rod is called a "Magic Circuit", you could say that it´s a second nerve system that sends magical energy around the body instead of electrical impulses.

I can only prepare one "Magic Circuit" because I´m just a beginner and I have no idea if I have any more of them inside my body. If I can insert it deep enough into my body and connect it to the other nerves, I can cast this spell without a problem.

This steel rod is not a metaphor. In reality, something like a burning tong which cannot be seen or felt is being inserted into my backbone.

_-I´m a priest but I am also a spell caster._

Henric Jarl, the man who said so, was really a magus. He is a living magus who performed many marvels and had touched the very structure of the world.

You cannot become a magus just through effort. It requires born talents and appropriate knowledge to become one. So now, all it comes down to is training what I can do. If I want to be a magus, I have to learn magic fit to my nature.

"…!" I am thinking needlessly. I feel the iron rod in my backbone slide into place.

"Uh, gah…!" If I lose control of my breathing now, it would be a fatal mistake. The artificial Magic Circuit will eat away my body and destroy it. If that happens, I´ll die. I would only be an amateur, failing on his first try.

"…" I grind my teeth and resume the connection. After a battle like walking on needles, the iron rod finally arrives deep within me and fuses with my body.

…This process took me about an hour. After that much time, I´m finally able to make one artificial circuit… one circuit that produces magical energy.

"Basic structure, analyze." After that, it becomes a process of naturally flowing magical energy. Everything else came out naturally after I made the circuit. The magical energy became my blood and the incantations coming from my mouth became my breathing, I´m like a machine that is following its programming.

"Composition, analyze." It is a magic of "strengthening" that reinforces the object´s abilities by understanding the object´s structure and channeling magical energy into it.

"…Basic structure, alter." Before me is the steel pipe. I will channel magical energy into it and reinforce its durability. Basically, channeling your magical energy into something other than yourself is like pouring poison into that object. It is just as the blood of Viktor Liljeholm is not the blood of the metal pipe. Pumping different blood only accelerates its breakdown, it certainly wouldn´t strengthen it. To prevent that and to turn the poison into a tonic, one must completely understand the structure of the target and channel the magical energy into small open spaces.

Things have been going well so far, but…

"Guh…!" The heat in my body quickly escapes. The burning pillar in my backbone is getting unstable and the lungs stretch to the limit demand air.

"Argh…!" The burning tong in my backbone is twitching in every direction. I quickly remove the steel rod from my back before it dislocates my spinal cord.

I breath heavily as I snap out of my trance. I arc my back in order to hold off the groggy feeling almost making me pass out.

"That…was too close." I barely manage to escape the jaws of death and the worst part is that I brought it on myself. Then I remember the steel pipe I´m holding in my hands.

"Ah, dammit…I failed…" There is no change in the metal pipe. It seems that the magical energy I poured into it has evaporated into the air. I only had only had one more incantation before I could make it stronger. I didn´t expect to get it right on my first try but it´s still frustrating.

"…" I wipe the sweat off my brow. Now that I think about it, I realize my whole body is sweating like I´ve been drenched with a bucket of water.

…But I´m lucky it just ended like this. That was really bad. If I had taken a second longer to recover myself, I would probably have destroyed most of my body.

"…If Henric is saying I will improve every time I come closer to death, there might be some hope but…" This was a bit more than I bargained for. It is not even that easy. One basic spell almost killed me tonight.

But even though I failed, I do think it´s neither embarrassing nor impossible.

"I think this is enough for today…I´m too tired to continue…" I got out of the basement and went to my bedroom. It´s especially cold for me now that I´m covered in sweat but there´s a strange burning feeling in my right hand. I don´t know if it´s some kind of side effect but I manage to ignore it as I got to bed.

My entire world is changing and it won´t stop there.

Days remaining: 0

28th of August, 2011. It´s ten o´clock in the morning, despite the traumatic experience I had last night, I slept surprisingly well to be honest. I have honestly no idea on how I even managed to get any sleep at all but I just did and the burning heat on my hand didn´t bug me either, in fact it´s gone now.

"I guess it was only temporary." I get up from my bed and let out a big yawn followed by stretching out my arms. I dress to my everyday clothes, pull up the window curtain and go to the toilet to wash my face.

As my water covered right hand slide down from my forehead down to my mouth, I see something on my hand that shouldn´t be there.

"What the hell!" On my right hand, blood is dripping down from its backside. The blood didn´t come from the hand because there´s no wound on it, it was coming my arm. I pull up my sweaters sleeve. There is certainly blood there.

"What is this? Did I cut myself somewhere?" It doesn´t hurt at all, there´s just a welt running down my arm. The welt goes straight from my shoulder down to the hand, and it looks kind of like a small snake running from my shoulder to my hand.

"Well, I don´t feel any pain and I can´t find any wound so it´ll probably go away soon…Wait a second." I go back to my room to see my bed stained with blood. "Oh crap…I can´t let mum see this." I pull off the sheets from my bed and my blanket. Everyone was still asleep so I sneaked down the stairs with the sheets in my hand to the washing machine before they wake up.

I put the sheets in the washer, add some detergent and start it up. As for the blood on my arm, I use a couple of paper towels dipped in water to clean it.

After that I had a quick breakfast while watching some TV. I watch the morning news. It looks like another strange case has surfaced to the public but this one was clearly murder. There is only one victim this time. One male got stabbed in the heart for unknown reasons just a few hours ago.

As much as I´d like to know what happened to that man, I have other things to worry about.

I write a note and hang it up on the fridge. It says that I´ll be going out and that I will be gone for a few hours. I wanted to meet Henric again to fill in the remaining questions I have.

I open up the front door to see how the weather is outside. It´s pretty warm, even though it´s nearly the end of summer.

"I don´t think I need my jacket today." I just put on my shoes and began my walk to the church. While on my way to the church, I pull up my sleeve again. There´s no more blood running down the arm but there are a few blood spots on my t-shirt and sweater.

"Maybe I should have put these into the washer too." But there is no point in going back now, I´m almost there anyway. I arrive at the front gate. This time though, there are people waiting outside to be let in to the building.

"That´s right, it is Sunday today, isn´t it?" I completely forgot about it, today is God´s service. I cannot talk to Henric with all of these people here. Talking about magic and related subjects in public is prohibited, that´s the first thing he told me about before I went home yesterday.

"So you came back after all."

But just when I thought it would be impossible to talk to the priest, I felt someone was tapping on my shoulder. I turned my head around to see that he was standing there all along. He wasn´t wearing his bishop clothing, he was wearing a more everyday clothes kind of style.

"Henric? What are you doing here? Aren´t you supposed to be inside?" I was surprised to see him out here wearing something other than his work clothes. He wore a black shirt, gray pants, leather shoes and the same golden cross necklace he had yesterday.

"I told you didn´t I, that you should come back here tomorrow?" He tells me with a confused look on his face.

"Yeah, well that´s fine but what´s with the get up? Are we going somewhere?" I look at his clothes while I ask him.

"Ah, you mean this? It´s pretty warm outside today so wearing the bishop attire can get sweaty. Besides, I´m off duty right now and I was going to see how well you handle 'that'." He was referring to my magic potential. While I pretty much got the general grasp on how to use it, I have no idea on how to do it correctly. "Follow me."

We take a walk to the other side of the graveyard that surrounded the church. We didn´t talk to each other on the way there, perhaps he didn´t want to talk here, out of respect for the dead who was resting here. It didn´t take long before we reached our destination.

There is a small lodge at the end of the trail. I´ve never seen it before and I have been walking this way before this. There´s nothing special about it, it´s made out of a similar stone material as the church, has two small windows and has the same paint job as the church. You could almost say it´s a miniature version of the main building.

"Is this newly built? This is the first time I´ve seen it."

"They finish building it last week so it´s not surprising that you haven´t seen it." He opens the lodge´s front door and walks in. I follow him inside. The inside isn´t particularly impressive either, there was just bookshelf without any books standing in the corner and a carpet was on the floor, other than that there was nothing.

"It is pretty empty in here." I say after looking around.

"True, but you shouldn´t judge the book by its cover." He told me as he closed the door behind him.

"Huh?" I didn´t understand what he meant by that, there really is nothing here. True we can talk about whatever we want in here but I don´t know. As always, he manages to come up with a surprise when I least expects it.

He goes down on one knee to the floor and he moved the carpet to the side. Underneath it there is a wooden hatch that´s leading down underground.

"Wow…I didn´t see that one coming." I say as I saw the hatch.

"This hatch leads to an underground temple. It is the perfect place to practice your skills without anyone noticing." He opens the hatch and I see a narrow stone staircase. He goes down the stairs by a few steps and makes a gesture to me to follow him. I do just that. He closes the hatch soon after I submerge below the ground and then we continued down the stairs.

There were a long row of candles that´s lit along the walls of the staircase. So I think it´s safe to assume that there is no electricity down here.

"Is it really necessary to secretly build an underground temple? I mean, it´s not like this place is going to be bombed or anything, right?"

"I wouldn´t say it´s necessary but it have its uses. For example, if there were a forest fire spreading throughout the village it would probably take a long time before the firefighters gets here in time, so you could seek shelter here if can´t run away from the fire."

"I doubt something like that would happen here."

"You never know. Okay, it was a pretty bad example but you get the idea."

After about a minute of walking down the stairs, we reach our destination. It´s a room made out of stone. The lights aren´t on, but the room itself is glowing blue. How deep is this? I look up the stairs I´ve descended. The staircase is built along the wall in an arc. It must trace out a perfect half-moon, as I can see the start of the stairs about ten meters directly above me.

"Alright, let´s get down to business." Henric says as he rubs his hands.

"Before we do anything, I have something I want to tell you." I say while looking at Henric.

"Go ahead." I tell him about last night´s practice run and how it turned out. He didn´t seem very pleased of what he heard. "So you did it on your own anyway…I thought I told you should come today instead doing it by yourself."

"No, you said that you recommended that I come today for practice not that I should. Besides you said that I could do as I please." I say to my defense. He gives out a sigh and pinches his fingers between his eyes in frustration.

"You know what; let´s just drop that subject for now. Well, at least now you know the stakes of casting a spell first hand. But it was still too reckless of you to do it on your own."

"Yes I know that…But I couldn´t help myself. I wanted to try it as soon as possible." What I just said didn´t help me one bit, since Henric gets even more frustrated.

"There should be limits to curiosity! You almost got yourself killed last night. If you didn´t break free from the trance at that time, the spell´s rebound would have either killed you or paralyzed your entire body."

"Rebound…? What´s that?"

"That is the reaction of a spell backfiring at its caster. You either lost little bit of your concentration while speaking the incantations or maybe that spell does not fare well with your nature."

"…" He told me a little bit about it yesterday. That it´s possible for a spell to reject the magus, that means the magus´s nature don´t mix well with that particular type of magic. Every magus has a certain or several attributes that is part of their nature and can improve on with relative ease. For example, if a magus has a fire attribute then that magus can cast fire spells a lot easier than any other elementally attributed spells.

The Reinforcement spell is not a part of any elemental attribute, it´s just a concentration of magical energy. Any magus could use it if they know basics behind it. And I couldn´t do such a basic spell without failing on my first try.

"Let me correct you on a few things that you´ve said. First off, the magic you keep talking about is in reality called 'Magecraft', the casting of mysteries. You could say it´s a form of science that cannot be logically explained. Secondly-"

Then I held up my hand in a gesture to stop.

"I can listen to your lecture later. Right now I only want you to answer some of my questions and this time a break won´t save you." I came here to get answers to begin with and I won´t leave until I get them.

Henric made a slightly annoyed expression on his face after my little intervention but he agreed to help me.

"Alright…ask away." He didn´t seem very enthusiastic.

"Okay, first question. What exactly is a Magic Circuit?"

"A Magic Circuit is a pseudo-nervous system that spreads itself through the human body and what qualifies a person to be a magus. Originally, its function was to just replenish a person's life force whenever the amount of Od inside his body reaches zero, but humans learned how to control it and use it to perform mysteries."

"What is Od?"

"Od is the energy found within living organisms. Mana is the life force of the planet and exists in the atmosphere. They're both two different types Prana, the power source used to actualize the mysteries of Magecraft."

I didn´t understand half of everything he just said.

"Alright, next question. Yesterday, you said you removed an abnormality in my head. What was it?"

"It was a layer of impurity that covered every Magic Circuit in your body. You could say it´s rust that was inside your soul."

"Rust…? How did it get there?"

"It could be many different reasons for it. But you don´t need to worry about it anymore. I´m specialized in healing by spiritual mediation so permanently removing it wasn´t very hard for me."

"…" I don´t know if I should be glad that it´s gone or concerned over the fact that I had impurities in my soul.

"Do you have any more questions you´d like to ask?"

"I have only one more. Why did you tell me about all of this? If the secret of magic is supposed to be hidden to the public then why tell an outsider about it?"

"Ah, so that´s the final riddle. It´s a rather simple reason really. I just hate to see a young man like you die for no reason."

"Huh…?" There was no emotion in his voice. He said it like it was normal thing to say in this conversation. "What do you mean by… die?"

"You haven´t realized it yet? You are being targeted by other magi. Yesterday when you told me about your troubles I knew that you were dealing with magic users. I don´t know if this Prosper character is a magus but Sylvie is definitely a capable spell caster."

So that is how it is. I had a feeling that would be the case after I learned of magic´s existence but I had nothing to support that theory.

"Why would they be after me? I have not done anything to upset someone to point where they want to kill me, much less someone who is a magus!"

"I´m not entirely sure on why they would be after you of all people but that´s how the situation seems to be at the moment." He said it nonchalantly.

I begin to get really restless and not to mention scared after hearing that I´m a target. I walk back and forth while chewing on my thumbnail as a result. What should I do?

"You are sure that they want me dead?" I ask him with a nervous tone in my voice.

"I can´t say unless I have the proof I need to be absolutely positive but it´s very rare for a magus to use magic on a commoner who has no knowledge what so ever about it. Although I can´t be completely sure if they really want to kill you, the risk of it being true is still high so you must be careful."

That didn´t help me one single bit, in fact that only made me feel worse. This is a real nightmare. I try to calm myself down a little. I took in a deep breath and then breathed out. That helped me clear my mind to a small degree.

"Is there anything you can do to help me? I can´t do this on my own."

"I know that. That´s the reason why I decide to have day off to begin with. I don´t know if I can teach you a new spell today but I´m pretty sure I can help you with your rebound issue." He gave me that smile like yesterday. There´s that feeling of security again, all my worries seem to wash away.

I finally regained my composure soon afterwards. I must have looked like a real coward back there.

"By the way, I forgot to ask." Henric pointed at my arm. "What happened?" He must have seen the blood stains on my sweaters sleeve.

"Oh, you mean this? I don´t know why but my arm bled like crazy earlier today and there´s not even a scratch on it." I pull up my sleeve to show him that there´s nothing there.

He approached me in order to examine it more closely. He puts his hands on my forearm, and then his fingers were surgically checking every inch of the arm to see if it´s damaged, I know that because I´ve been through a similar checkup before. After a few minutes of concentrated examination, he gives me the news of the operation.

"Hmm…I can´t find anything wrong with your arm. It´s like you said there´s no wound on it and I can´t find any damage on the inside of it either. It could have been a side effect from yesterday's practicing but it seems to be gone now. There is nothing to worry about."

I give out a sigh of relief as I received the thumbs up from Henric. Now I don´t need to think about that anymore and focus on what we are going to do right now. But there´s something that has been bugging me for little while now.

"Henric, you said before that you don´t know if you could teach me any new spells. Do you mean that they are more advanced than the Reinforcement spell or is it that you don´t have any other spell to teach me?"

He went quite after I said that. He held his hand to his chin in a pondering gesture. It looked like he was wondering on what to say next.

"Henric?" He then took a deep breath and then he told something I didn´t expect.

"To be honest, you can´t learn magic with such short lessons."

"Huh….?" I didn´t understand what he meant by that.

"This is what I tried to say before you interrupted me. It takes months or even years to learn the most basic parts of Magecraft. I gave you the instructions yesterday because you would probably never stop asking me about it but I never imagined that you would actually be able to fulfill at least a portion of what I said."

So he is saying…that I did better than he thought I would.

"Then why did you teach me the Reinforcement spell in the first place? If it was impossible for me to cast it then there would be no point in telling me about it."

"That is because I wanted you to learn on how to activate your Magic Circuit. Even if you can´t cast the spell, you will still activate your Magic Circuit nonetheless. That alone will give you an edge against a magus. If Sylvie were to paralyze you again, then all you need to do is to pour magical energy into Magic Circuit and you will be able to break free from it."

Ah, now I get it. So that is why he told me about all of this.

"But when you performed the incantation, you used the wrong method."

"…? What do you mean?"

"There were two things that made it impossible for you to get it right at your first try. The first one is your affinity. You said that you were unable to finish your incantation but you didn´t lose your concentration once, right? The only reason I can think is that you're simply not suited for that type of magic."

"…What? Does that mean that I can´t cast it properly?"

"I am saying that you have it a lot harder to cast it than others. You can use it but you will have a higher risk of failing when using Reinforcement. It´s like a subject you don´t comprehend."

"…" Those words made me lose confidence in mastering it.

"Now the second reason is the most crucial one out of the two and it was a mistake you made. It´s the Magic Circuit you used. You said you made an artificial Magic Circuit when you were practicing, right?"

"Y-Yeah, that´s right…" I have a bad feeling about this.

"You used an imaginary Magic Circuit instead of a real one, which was your mistake. It´s like replacing a steel pipe that was holding up car with ice bar. You know where this is going, right?"

"…"

"Simply put, it breaks very easily. You can transfer magical energy through it but if you pour in too much at the same time, it will break down."

"So I didn´t do it right at all, is that what you´re saying?"

"You were basically playing Russian Roulette with five bullets in the cylinder of the gun instead of one. That is what I´m saying."

"…?" That made my mind freeze for a moment. I knew it was serious but I had no idea that it was that bad. If what Henric says is true, then I should have died down in that basement.

"But it is not all hopeless. I will help you with your issues little by little but it´s probably going to take all day if you´re going to make any progress."

That´s a pretty long session if it´s going to take the whole day. My family will surely get worried if I don´t tell them that I´ll be away a lot longer than planned.

"Do you mind if I make a call back home?"

"I do not mind." I then look for my cellphone by searching my pockets.

"Huh?" But I can´t find it anywhere. I searched every pocket in my trousers and sweater but I couldn´t find it. "Dammit, I forgot it back home!"

I could go back home to tell them in person but that would only waste precious time. School starts again tomorrow…I will probably meet both Prosper and Sylvie by then.

"No, let´s focus on what we are going to do right now. I can take the scolding later." I don´t want to take any chances of wasting too much time on walking back home.

And so my lessons begin. It wasn't as life threatening as yesterday's training but it was a bit more complex for me to pull off. He wasn´t going to teach me any new incantations today, instead he focused on teaching me on how to properly use a Magic Circuit.

It was an extremely long process for me. Mostly because I didn´t understand a thing Henric was telling me. For hours end he kept talking about using the right methods of casting. I was just sitting down on a chair, trying my best to comprehend what he was saying but to no avail.

We then went to practical part of the lesson. I was told to use a Magic Circuit again but the method he told me to use didn´t work for me. So I used the same method as yesterday instead. But I got scolded when he found out and I had to do it all over again.

After a whole day of trial and error, Henric gives out a sigh and says…

"I give up…Failing once or twice is perfectly fine but failing twenty five times in row…Now that´s something worth worrying about."

"Well, sorry about that. But it´s a lot harder for me than you think…" I sat down on the chair when I say that, resting a little. I´m not exhausted like last time but I am a little tired and I´m sweaty all over my body too.

"You can perform the complexity of a spell but not the most natural and important part of a magi´s life…What am I to do with you?"

"…" That annoyed me a little. True, I couldn´t get it right but he didn´t have to put it that way.

"Let´s call it a day. It´s already late and you need your rest. Make sure you go straight home when you leave. You don´t want to worry your parents any more then you need."

"…Yeah, I got that." He didn´t even need to tell me that. That is what I planned to do from the beginning.

I get up from the chair, walk to stairs and waved my right hand in the air as a sign of goodbye.

"Before you go, there´s something I want to say." I stop when I heard what he said. "Don´t use Reinforcement again."

I opened my up mouth to talk back at him but I didn´t. It´s an understandable warning and I know that better than anyone else. I continued up the stairs without saying anything.

As I opened the hatch back to the small shed, I notice that it is dark outside.

"Wow, it´s later than I thought…" I close the hatch behind me and go outside. It is slightly cloudy up in the sky with a few stars that can be seen behind the clouds.

The wind is blowing. It is cold enough to make my cheeks go numb. It is usually not this cold at night around her but it´s nearly autumn so it is not mystery. My breath hangs around in a white cloud. I wrap up my body to hold off the cold.

"I would have brought my jacket if I knew I would stay this long." But there is no use to complain about it. Like Henric said, I should walk straight home. And I wasted no time on that.

_-Don´t use Reinforcement again._

"…" It was pretty vexing to be told not to use the only spell you know of again. Even though I know it´s dangerous, I can still improve on it if I try.

"It´s always like this…" Just when I get in to something, I either give up on it or someone tells me not to do it again. Before I knew it, I was shaking. It´s not because of the cold wind, I was shaking because it was too vexing for me to listen to those words.

"Ouch…!" That burning feeling in my right came as I got angry.

I decided to stop walking in order to calm down a little. I was standing on the road next to the school and looked up to the sky.

"No wonder it´s dark…the moon is behind the clouds." There is no light in the sky when I look up. Because of the strong winds, the clouds are moving fast. It is past eight and there´s no sign of life in the empty school. It seems this place is filled only with chill, as it´s all silent.

"…?" Just now…I think I hear something. "I do hear something. Is it coming from the school ground?"

This night…I must have been curious about the sound that broke the silence. To investigate it, I find myself heading even though I somehow know that I mustn´t.

I go to the schoolyard.

"…People?" Well, they only look like that form in the distance. It is a dark night with no light. If I want to know more, I´ll have to go closer to the schoolyard. I can hear the sound louder now. It is the sound of metal hitting metal. That must mean someone is fighting with weapons there.

"…That´s stupid. What the hell am I thinking…?" I dismiss the image from my mind with a bitter smile and walk on.

At that time, maybe my instincts noticed the danger, as I hid myself as I approached. I don´t know if this is fortunate or not. But anyways, when I get by a tree that is big enough to hide myself, I take closer look at the source of the sound.

My mind stops completely when I saw it.

"What the…" There is something strange there, a man in green and a man in black. They are dangerously armed, and as ominous appearance suggests, they are slashing at each other.

I can´t understand. I can´t follow them with my eyes. My brain does not work properly, faced with their impossible movements. But the clang from their weapons tells me they are trying to kill each other. I can hear the basketball field's concrete ground crack as they exchange blows with each other.

"…" I just knew immediately when I saw them…They are not human. They probably just things that look like humans. I can tell not because I´m learning magic. Anyone would realize they are not human. After all, humans' can´t move like that. So they are something no one should associate with.

"…" I can feel their murderous intent from a distance…I´m going to die. My body understands faster than my brain that I will definitely die if I stay here. That is why my heart is racing so fast. As a living thing like them, I sense that they´re living things made only to kill.

…They are using weapons made only to kill. I remember the murder earlier today. They said the man was killed by some sort of thrust weapon.

"…!" I should not watch any longer. But my body won´t follow my commands and I can´t even breathe. My mind wants to run away, but my judgment tells me I will be seen the moment I run away.

…More than the conflict within me, my body is just numb. Even though I´m a good forty meters away, I can´t breathe properly and it´s like I have a spear pointed right at my back.

"…" The sounds stop. The figures separate and stand facing each other. The moment I feel relief at the end of their battle, I sense an even stronger intention to kill.

"…!" My heart stops. The numbness in my body becomes convulsion, and I clench my teeth to try to hold my trembling body.

"You´ve got to be kidding me…What the hell is he!" An overwhelming amount of magical energy is flowing into the guy in black. I remember when Henric showed me what it´s like to draw in magical energy from the surroundings. It was a beautiful magic that impressed even an amateur like me.

But that thing is different. Just as even the simple task of drinking water could seem ugly if it goes too far, what he is doing is so excessive that anyone with knowledge of magical energy would hate it.

"…" He is going to die. The guy in green is going to die. It is a blow with that much concentrated magical energy. There´s no way he´ll be able to survive it.

He´ll die. He is not human, so something merely like a human will die. That is… That´s… That´s…something I can just ignore?

That doubt takes my mind off of them. The binds in my body disappear, and the instant I take a deep breath…

"Who´s there!" The guy in black stares at me, while I´m still hiding.

"…!" The black guy´s body sinks. Just that motion tells me that I´m his target now.

"Ahhh…!" My legs start running automatically. I finally realize that it is an action to escape death and I put all the energy in my body into running away. I don´t know how fast I run, but before I know it, I´m in the school building.

"How stupid can I be!" I regret my actions, panting heavily. I should have run into the forest to get away. What am I doing, fleeing to such a deserted place? And a school of all things. Isn´t there some better place to hide than here? Anyways, why do I think I´ll be killed if I don´t escape.

My heart aches from running so fast. Turning around, I can see nothing pursuing me. The only sound in the air is the sound of my footsteps.

"…Holy crap…I don´t think I´ve ever ran that fast before…" So, I can finally rest. I stop my feet, unable to take another step. I send oxygen to my pumping heart and look up to finally realize that I´m safe.

"…Man…What was that…?" I recall the scene from earlier while catching my breath. Anyway, I´m sure that it wasn´t something I should have seen. Some things like humans were fighting in the school grounds. That´s all I can remember. But there was something else I saw, out of the corner of my eye.

"…Wasn´t there someone else there too…?" But I can´t remember what that figure looked like. To be honest, I didn´t have the composure to notice anything other than those two fighting.

"Well, anyways…"

"The chase is over, right?" The voice comes from right in front of me. "You ran pretty far." He speaks in a friendly tone.

"…" I can´t breathe. My brain stops and even though I cannot think… I vaguely understand that I am going to die.

"You know better than anyone that you can´t escape, right? People who get killed are usually like that. It is nothing to be embarrassed about. You don´t have to feel ashamed." The lance in his right hand is casually raised. "You were just unlucky, kid. Well, you saw us, so die."

And the man's lance mercilessly pierces Viktor Liljeholm´s heart. There wasn´t even time to dodge it. All the training I did was for nothing. I knew I was going to be killed. I knew I was going to be pierced by that lance, yet I could not move at all.

"Aa… ah." The world distorts around me. My body grows cold. Feeling vanishes from my fingertips. "Gah…" I cough up blood, once. More blood should have come up, but it only happens once.

"…" I can´t see well. There is no feeling in me. I feel like a jellyfish floating in the dark sea at night. I don´t feel any pain already.

The world is white and only I am black.

So, rather than I´m feeling like I´m dead, it´s more like the world around me has disappeared.

"Dead men tell no tales. It´s only natural for the weak to die, but…" I cannot concentrate on my vision. "Man, you really do make me do unpleasant jobs." I can only hear voices.

"I know, I don´t any complaints. I saw the girls Servant, so I´ll go back." And after that my consciousness starts to fade away.

"Archer, huh? I want to finish my match with him, but I have to follow my Master´s plan. …Geez, I do not like him." Those were words I could hear from the voice. Everything else went silent and my vision went dark.

I thought that would be the last thing I would ever hear but…Footsteps approach me and stop. That´s when my mind faded away completely. I can hear a voice but I can´t make out what it is saying. Right now, my breathing is too noisy. My lungs must still be alive.

I…can´t…hear…much…now…

I… feel… tired…

"…_At the mid-point in the journey of life I found myself in a dark forest for the clear path is lost…"-Dante Alighieri_

To be continued… 


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